Immediately after taking over as UK Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak said “I am honored to become the prime minister”.
Rishi Sunak was born on 12 May
1980 in Southampton, one of three children. He is of Indian descent. His grandparents
were born in India before moving to East Africa and then the UK in the 60s.
His father was a medical doctor
while his mother ran a pharmacy in southern England, something Sunak says gave
him his desire to serve the public.
“British Indian is what I tick on
the census, we have a category for it. I am British, this is my home and my
country, but my religious and cultural heritage is Indian, my wife is Indian. I
am open about being a Hindu,” Sunak said.
Sunak is the first Hindu to
become British prime minister. He is the first British Asian to become prime
minister and the first nonwhite to take the top job. At 42, he is the youngest
prime minister in more than 200 years.
His wife is Akshata Murty. They met while both were studying at Stanford University in the US.
They married in 2009. They have two daughters, Anoushka and Krishna.
Ms Murty is the daughter of Indian billionaire N
R Narayana Murthy, who founded
software company Infosys
Sunak is not just rich, he is super rich and some ask if his vast fortune makes him too rich to be prime minister
Sunak and his wife have an estimated fortune of about 730 million pounds ($830 million), according to the Sunday Times Rich List. On this year’s list, published before her death, Queen Elizabeth II was estimated to have about 370 million pounds ($420 million).
It is the first time in history that the residents of Downing Street are richer than those of Buckingham Palace.
Mr Sunak worked as an analyst for
the investment bank Goldman Sachs between 2001 and 2004. He then worked for
hedge fund management firm The Children’s Investment Fund Management and became
a partner in 2006.
In 2010 he became a founding
member of private investment partnership, Theleme Partners. He left the firm in
2013 to pursue his political career.
Sunak was first elected as a Member of Parliament in 2015.
Prime Minister
Boris Johnson gave Sunak his first major government role, appointing him as
chief secretary to the Treasury in 2019 and promoting him to chancellor in
2020.
Sunak has experience of economic
crisis-fighting. During the pandemic, Sunak put in place measures worth £400
billion ($452 billion) to boost the economy. But that stimulus came at a huge
cost. The UK is in the midst of a deep cost-of-living crisis and growing
inequality.
Adapted from CNN, The Washington Post and NPR
